[Mel] In Paris With You by James Fenton

 Don’t talk to me of love.  I’ve had an earful
 And I get tearful when I’ve downed a drink or two.
 I’m one of your talking wounded.
 I’m a hostage. I’m maroonded.
 But I’m in Paris with you.

 Yes, I’m angry at the way I’ve been bamboozled
 And resentful at the mess that I’ve been through.
 I admit I’m on the rebound
 And I don’t care where are we bound.
 I’m in Paris with you.

 Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre,
 If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame
 If we skip the champs Elysees
 And remain here in this sleazy
 Old hotel room
 Doing this or that
 To what and whom
 Learning who you are,
 Learning what I am.

 Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris,
 The little bit of Paris in our view.
 There’s that crack across the ceiling
 And the hotel walls are peeling
 And I’m in Paris with you.

 Don’t talk to me of love.  Let’s talk of Paris.
 I’m in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
 I’m in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
 I’m in Paris with... all points south.
 Am I embarrassing you?
 I’m in Paris with you.

[Mel] Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay. 

[Mel] The Last Hero by G. K. Chesterton

See the flying French depart
Like the bees of Bonaparte,
Swarming up with a most venomous vitality.
Over Baden and Bavaria,
And Brighton and Bulgaria,
Thus violating Belgian neutrality.

And the injured Prussian may
Not unreasonably say
"Why, it cannot be so small a nationality
Since Brixton and Batavia,
Bolivia and Belgravia,
Are bursting with the Belgian neutrality."

By pure Alliteration
You may trace this curious nation,
And respect this somewhat scattered Principality;
When you see a B in Both
You may take your Bible oath
You are violating Belgian neutrality.

[Lisah] For All The Years

Sometimes I know the words to say,
And thank you for all you've done.
But they seem to fly up and away,
As quickly as they come.

How could I possibly thank you enough?
The one who makes me whole.
To whom I owed my very life,
And the forming of my soul.

The person who tucked me in at night,
Who always stopped me crying.
The only one who was the expert,
At picking up if I was lying.

You always dropped me off to school,
Then spent sad days alone.
Yet magically you always produced a smile,
For the minute that I got home.

You had to make some sacrifices,
To always put me first.
You helped me test my broken wings,
In spite of how much it hurts.

Are there really any words for this?
I find this question tough...
Anything that I choose to say,
Just doesn't seem like its enough.

How ever can I thank you,
For your heart, your sweat, your tears?
For ten thousand little things you've done,
For god knows how many years?

For changing with me as I changed,
Turning a blind eye to all my flaws.
Not loving me because you had to,
But loving me 'just because'.

You never even gave up on me,
On days your wits had reached their end.
You were always oh-so proud of me,
You were always my best friend.
So in time I've come to realize,
The only way to say.
The only way I can thank you enough,
Is possible in just one way.

Look at me standing in front of you,
Look who I have become.
Do you see yourself in me?
The things that I have done?

All your hopes and all your dreams,
The bond that no one sees.
Transferred for over twenty years,
Your best was passed to me.

Thank you for the gifts you give,
And everything that you do.
But thank you mummy, most of all,
Because you helped my dreams come true.

-Sophia Haq

[Lisah] Silent Witness

Did you ever notice mum,
The tears roll down my face?
The day you took an overdose,
Puking all over the place.

Did you ever notice dad,
The lump that was in my throat?
The day I had to pack my things,
You handed me my coat.

Did you ever notice sis,
The way my hands would shake?
When you used to knock me around,
Convinced I wouldn't break.

I guess you guys just never saw,
The torture you put me through.
God forbid I ever become,
As selfish as any of you.

It's because of you I'll never die,
Because I'm already dead.
The torture inflicted by you lot,
Has affected me in the head.

But still you never noticed me,
And the things that I went through.
To close my eyes and cover my ears,
To get away from you.

Everyday something would break,
A table or a chair.
The knives, the fists and the blood,
You forgot I was standing there?

I was only a child how could you do it,
And destroy me the way you did.
How could you do it to anyone?
Least of all, your kid.

-Sophia Haq

[Winifred] Funeral Blues

1. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with the juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and, with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin. Let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message: “He is dead!”
Put crepe bows around the white necks of the public doves.
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my north, my south, my east and west,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can come to any good.

-W.H Auden

[Winifred] The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

[Sarah] Tick-Tock

There lived a couple

who lived by a couple

of clocks beside their bed

As newly wed

as two could be,

things soon turned otherwise,

the problem being

splitting hairs between

promise and compromise.

Now being so civil

and servants to time,

naturally they were upset

when, hard as they tried

they couldn’t get

their two clocks synchronized.

No matter how

they altered their rhythm

just before they slept,

she’d go through periods

when she’d still be

two hours in the red.

They re-paired the clocks

and pillow-talked

but still couldn’t agree

whose clock was off

and, on that count,

they figured time was ripe

to call it quits

and leave, let leave,

a match unstruck, unwon.

The sting in this tale

of a vow that failed –

love is more than the feel

of being together

in the same room

but never at the same time

Felix Cheong

[Sarah] Mr. Nobody

I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody’s house.
There’s no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr., Nobody

‘Tis he who always tears our books,
who leaves our doors ajar;
he pulls the buttons from our shirts,
and scatters pins afar,
that squeaking door will always squeak,
because of this you see:
we leave the oiling to be done
by Mr Nobody.

He puts damp wood upon the fire,
So kettles cannot boil;
His are the feet that bring in mud
And all the carpets soil.
The papers always are mislaid,
Who had them last but he?
There’s no one tosses them about
But Mr. Nobody

Walter de la Mare

[Sarah] Goliath and David (For D.C.T., killed at Fricourt, March 1916)

Once an earlier David took
Smooth pebbles from a brook:
Out between the lines he went
To that one-sided tournament,
A shepherd boy who stood out fine
And young to fight a Philistine
Clad all in brazen mail. He swears
That he's killed lions, he's killed bears,
And those that scorn the God of Zion
Shall perish so like bear or lion.
But . . . the historian of that fight
Had not the heart to tell it right.

Striding within javelin range
Goliath marvels at this strange
Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength.
David's clear eye measures the length;
With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee,
Poises a moment thoughtfully,
And hurls with a long vengeful swing.
The pebble, humming from the sling
Like a wild bee, flies a sure line
For the forehead of the Philistine;
Then . . . but there comes a brazen clink.
And quicker than a man can think
Goliath's shield parries each cast.
Clang! clang! and clang! was David's last.
Scorn blazes in the Giant's eye,
Towering unhurt six cubit's high.
Says foolish David, 'Damn your shield!
And damn my sling! but I'll not yield.'

He takes his staff of Mamre oak,
A knotted shepherd-staff that's broke
The skull of many a wolf and fox
Come filching lambs from Jesse's flocks.
Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh
Can scatter chariots like blown chaff
To rout: but David, calm and brave,
Holds his ground, for God will save.
Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh!
Shame for Beauty's overthrow!
(God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.)
One cruel backhand sabre cut --
'I'm hit! I'm killed!' young David cries,
Throws blindly foward, chokes . . . and dies.
And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim,
Goliath straddles over him.

Robert Graves

[Roxanne] Edgar Guest: A Boy and His Dad

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip— There is a glorious fellowship! Father and son and the open sky And the white clouds lazily drifting by, And the laughing stream as it runs along With the clicking reel like a martial song, And the father teaching the youngster gay How to land a fish in the sportsman's way. I fancy I hear them talking there In an open boat, and the speech is fair. And the boy is learning the ways of men From the finest man in his youthful ken. Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare With the gentle father who's with him there. And the greatest mind of the human race Not for one minute could take his place. Which is happier, man or boy? The soul of the father is steeped in joy, For he's finding out, to his heart's delight, That his son is fit for the future fight. He is learning the glorious depths of him, And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim; And he shall discover, when night comes on, How close he has grown to his little son. A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip— Builders of life's companionship! Oh, I envy them, as I see them there Under the sky in the open air, For out of the old, old long-ago Come the summer days that I used to know, When I learned life's truths from my father's lips As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

- Only the monstruous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

By Robert Frost

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See

We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each springimpassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole
One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerveless germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some freshblossoming wood
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good

Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
Or is this daedalfashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature's heritors, and one
With every pulse of life that beats the air?
Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!.

We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!.

By Oscar Wilde

I Can’t go to School by Jasmine Shipp

I can’t go to school because I am sick

If I walk out my house I’ll get hit by a brick

I can’t go to school because I’m afraid
On my way there I might get run over by a huge parade

I can’t go to school because I have a funereal to attend
School uniforms just aren’t the new trend

I can’t go to school because I woke up late
I broke my thumb while learning how to skate

I can’t go to school because I feel a little blue
My brother stuck my hands together with supper glue

I can’t go to school because school is boring
I wonder what excuses I’ll have tomorrow morning

2009

A WOUNDED deer leaps highest by Emily Dickinson

A WOUNDED deer leaps highest,
I ’ve heard the hunter tell;
’T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.

The smitten rock that gushes, 5
The trampled steel that springs:
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!

Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it caution arm, 10
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “You ’re hurt” exclaim!

A Better Ressurection by Christina Rossetti

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea:

But we loved with a love that was more than love--

   I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

   Went envying her and me--

Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we--

   Of many far wiser than we--

And neither the angels in heaven above,

   Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea,

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.


[Rafiqqa]